Geofencing Server Offloading Mobile Device Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
The increasing popularity of geofencing burdens mobile devices with higher processing and memory demands, as well as wireless bandwidth usage, when managing multiple geofences, necessitating a more efficient approach to handle larger numbers of geofences.
Innovation Solution
A geofencing server acts as a centralized proxy that manages multiple geofences for mobile devices, receives location data, determines necessary actions, and delivers location-specific content or device-executable actions, thereby alleviating the computational and memory burden on the device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If geofencing is implemented on mobile devices to monitor and provide alerts for movement outside prescribed areas, then location monitoring capability is improved, but processing and memory burden on the device increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the geofencing management functionality from the mobile device and relocates it to a remote server. The server stores geofence definitions, receives location data from the device, determines whether the device is inside or outside geofences, and sends notifications. This extraction removes the computational burden of geofence management from the mobile device while maintaining location monitoring capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a server as an intermediary between the mobile device and the geofence management system. The server acts as a mediator that receives location data from the device, performs the complex comparison operations against stored geofence definitions, and generates notifications. This intermediary approach allows the device to maintain simple location reporting functionality while the server handles the computationally intensive geofence management tasks.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the number of geofences managed by a mobile device is increased to handle larger numbers of geofences, then geofencing coverage is improved, but resource utilization (processing, memory, bandwidth) increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the storage and management of multiple geofence definitions from the mobile device and places them on a remote server. The server maintains a database of geofence definitions with their coordinate ranges, allowing the device to work with an unlimited number of geofences without local storage constraints. This extraction enables extensive geofencing coverage while keeping the device's resource utilization low.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a universal server-based system that can manage any number of geofences for any number of devices. The server infrastructure provides multi-functional capability to handle geofence storage, location data processing, and notification generation for multiple devices simultaneously. This universal approach allows individual devices to benefit from extensive geofencing coverage without each device needing to independently manage the resources.
Data Source
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AI summary
Geofencing system and method wherein the computational complexity is transferred from a mobile device to a server. The server stores a plurality of geofences in a memory along with addresses of third-party servers associated with each of the geofences, receives current location data from the mobile device, compares the current location data with each of the plurality of geofences to determine whether data is to be obtained from one or more of the third-party servers associated with each of the geofences and, if yes, obtaining the data from the one or more servers and transmitting the data to the mobile device.